Reinstate GRUB in MBR as default bootloader

[V P]

On Apr 7, 2005 2:17 AM, Barry Yu <barryyupuilee at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> My system is a dual boot FC3 and XP, the default bootloader was GRUB and
> installed in /dev/hda, displaying a menu for option of  FC3 and
> Microsoft. The XP was corrupted and I rebuilt the boot.ini file, since
> then the M$ bootloader became default and I left with option to use DOS
> and XP on that menu - there was no FC 3 bootup built in tha M$ menu, I
> tried to re-instate the GRUB into MBR like this;
> 
> Booted up the rescue CD and enter : linux rescue
> chroot   /mnt/sysimage
> grub-install    /dev/hda
> (I tried above on other machines before in several times and worked fine
> but not this time - see message displayed below)
> 
> A message displayed ; /dev/hda does not have any corresponding BIOS drives.
> The result was I can't bootup the GRUB.
> So I booted up the rescue CD again and get into recue mode;
> chroot   /mnt/sysimage
> grub-install  --recheck  /dev/hda
> (Displayed below)
> (fd0)   /dev/fd0
> (hd0)  /dev/hda
> (hd1)  /dev/hdb
> 
> And the I rebooted sytem, this time GRUB is reinstated and worked O.K.
> 
> My question; Why GRUB was corrupted (?), why grub-install /dev/hda won't
> fix the problem but grub-install --recheck /dev/hda would?

When you rebuilt boot.ini, windows overwrote the MBR with it's own
boot loader. You see, windows is not that considerate when it comes to
dual boot of a windows OS and a non windows OS. It assumes (wrongly)
that it and maybe it's brothers are the only OSes that are/can be
installed on the system.
I am not sure about the second question.

VJP


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